Microsoft unbundles, againMicrosoft is separating Teams, its popular video and chat app, from its Office software suite in markets around the world, broadening a split that began in the European Union last fall.
It appears to be the latest effort by the software giant to head off investigations by global antitrust enforcers as regulators examine the power of Big Tech.
Microsoft first added the video and document collaboration program to its business software suite in 2017, and saw Teams’s popularity soar after the coronavirus pandemic unleashed a boom in hybrid and remote working.
At the height of the lockdown in 2020, Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior by bundling Teams with Office.
(Three months later, Slack agreed to sell itself to Salesforce for $27.7 billion.)
Persons:
Microsoft unbundles, Slack, Eric Yuan
Organizations:
Microsoft, European Union, Big Tech, Rivals, Commission